The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-11-27

he returned to clearness Of consciousness and
even a measure of com posure, the bells had just
done ringing, and the Sabbath silence still
marred by the patter of belated feet By the
clock above the fire. well as by those more
speaking signs. the service had not long begun;
and the unhappy sinner. if his father had really
gone to church, might count on near two hours
of only comparative unhappiness. With his
father the superlative degree returned nfalli-
bly, He knew it by every shrinking fiber in
his body: he knew it by the sudden dizzy whrl-
ing of his brain at the mere thought of that ca
lamity. An hour and half. perhaps hour
and three-quarters, il the doctor was long
winded. and then would begin again that active
agony from which, even in the dull ache of the
present, he shrank IS If from the bite of fire.
He saw in vision. the family pew, the somno-
lent cushions, the Bibles the psalm books. Maria
with her smelling salts, his father sitting spec
tacled and critical; and once he struck
with indignation, not unjustly. It was inhuman
to go off to church. and leave sinner in sus-
pense. unpublished, unforgiven. And at the
very touch OF criticism the paternal sanctity
was lessened; vet the paternal terror only grew,
and tine two strands Of feeling pushed him in
the same direction.
And suddenly there came upon him q mad
fear lest his father should have locked him in.
The notion had no ground in sense; it was prob
ably more than a reminiscence of similar
lamities in childhood, for his fathers room had
ALWAYS been the chamber OF inguistion and the
scene of punishment; but 1t stuck SO vigorously
in his mind that he must instantly approach the
door and prove Its untruth. As he went, he
struck upon q drawer left open in the business
table. It the money drawer measure of
his fathers disarray; the money drawer-per-
when even divines differ, between q providence
ard a temptation2 Or who, sitting calmly
doines of poor, hunted dog. slavishly afraid.
slavishly rebellious. like John Nicholson on that
particular Sundays His hand in the
drawer, almost before his mind had conceived
the hope; and rising to his new situation he
wrote. sitting in his fathers chair and using his
fathers blotting- pad, his pitiful apology and
farewell:
My Dear Father have taken the money.
but will pay it back as / am able
You will never hear of again. did not
mean any harm By anything, so hope you will
sI to sle1snder and Maria but not f
you don't want to. l could not W ait to see you,
really. Please try to forgive me. Your affec-
Tomato son, JOHN NICHOLSON"
The coins distracted and the mssive written.
he could not be gone too soon from the scene of
these tranSgressions; and remem beripg how his
father had once returned from church, on some
slight illness. in the middle of the second
psalm. he burst not make a packet of a
change of clothes. Attired he was, he slipped
from the paternal doors. and found himself in
the cool spring air, the thin spring sunshine
and the great Sabbath quiet of the city, which
now only pointed by the cawing OF the
rocks. There was not soul in Randolph Cres-
cent nor soul in Quesnsferry street; in this
outdoor privacy and the sense of escape, John
took heart again; and with pathetic sense of
leave-takIng, he even ventured up the lane and
stood awhile. strange peri at the gates OF a
quaint paradise, by the west end of St Georges
church. They were singing within; and by
strange chance the tune was ''St. Georges,
inburgh," which bears the name, and was
first sung in the choir of that church. ''Who is
this King of Glory?" went the voices from with
in; and. to John, this was like the end of all
Christian observances, for he was now to be
wild man like Ishmael. and his life was to be
cast in homeless places and with goddess people.
1t thus, with no rising sense of the adven-
turous. but in mere desolaton and despair, that
ha fur mad hac on
out on foot for California, with . more imme-
date eye to Glasgow